United States Congress

CNN released a poll yesterday purporting to show that three-quarters of Americans say that most GOP members of Congress don’t deserve to be re-elected. CNN cautioned that the results are “generic” and that “there’s plenty of time for these numbers to change.” (see link below) The poll results should not be interpreted to show that Democrats will regain the House.

In order to be useful, polling must account for congressional districts like Idaho’s 2nd Dist., where it was reported last week that sentiment was running 2 to 1 for continuing the shutdown until Obamacare is defeated. That district and many others will remain Republican no matter what.

“Moderate” Republican Mike Simpson, who voted for HJR 59 to begin the shutdown as well as HR 2775 to end it, could lose his seat to his tea-party-friendly opponent Bryan Smith. However, the seat will remain Republican.

Thus, the 30 percent or more of Idaho Dist. 2 voters won’t count who show up in the three-quarters of Americans wanting Republicans ousted. That means the percentage of voters opposed to Republicans will be lower than 75 percent in districts that are actually in play.

The tea-party strategy is as much about outing people like Simpson and pushing safe Republican districts further right as it is about stopping Obamacare. We need polling that looks at districts that actually could be won by Democrats if we want to accurately gauge how this apparent dissatisfaction with Republicans will play out in next year’s congressional elections.

President Obama has just announced that he is going to Congress as soon as it reconvenes with his plan to attack Syria. This will take a few days, time for the Russians to talk sense to Assad.

And, time for US to ask our senators and representative in Congress not to authorize an act of war, to press for a diplomatic solution, and to pursue whoever is responsible for the the mass murder of civilians (by gas or other means) and bring them to justice, using precision, police action if necessary.